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Gwyllm Griffiths
Gwyllm Griffiths is a former miner from Wales who was mutated after taking part in a genetic experiment conducted by Prof. Mathers. History Griffiths considered himself a smart man and hated both his mining job and his hometown. He intended to move to London to try different things, but his girlfriend, Cathy Evans, convinced him to apply for a job as Prof. Mathers' assistant instead. As soon as he heard about Mathers' experiments with Darwin the chimpanzee and his plans to attempt the same on a human subject, Griffiths volunteered. Mathers warned him that the experiment wouldn't be without risk, but Griffiths preferred anything to going back to the mines. When Griffiths stepped inside the Professor's machine, his body experienced the equivalent of 20,000 years of evolution. He came out with a vastly enlarged cranium and exhibited telepathic abilities, a wider field of vision and "a power of charged concentration". With his newly developed intellect, Griffiths asked for books on all possible subjects and spent his next days studying them. He also managed to become a very skilled pianist in a spectacularly short time, as he claimed playing the piano was a matter of mathematical and manual dexterity, and that he now possessed both to an incredible degree. Meanwhile, further physical mutations occurred, with Griffiths losing all his hair, developing enlarged ears and a sixth finger on each hand. He lost his need for sleep as well. According to Griffiths, the evolutionary process was at this point accelerating on its own, and he had reached a stage humanity was destined to reach in approximately a million years. At this stage, he also demonstrated telekinetic abilities. He killed Mrs. Ives by stopping her heart after she caught sight of him and was planning to warn the villagers about his transformation. Griffiths showed no remorse for killing Ives. He had come to regard humans as lesser creatures, akin to the way humans might be inclined to view apes. Soon, his lack of compassion reached a point in which he intended to annihilate the entire village due to perceiving it as a threat. Fortunately, however, he changed his mind about that, as he realized he himself had reached a point in evolution in which even hatred and the pursuit of power had lost meaning. Instead, he wished to go back inside Mathers' machine and accelerate his evolution even more, hoping to reach a point in which he would become non-corporeal. Griffiths asked Cathy - the only one he could still trust - to operate the machine while he was inside. But instead of pulling the switch forwards, she reversed it, hoping to bring Griffiths back to his original human form. In that she succeeded, even though the whole experience proved too exhausting for the now human Griffiths, who collapsed shortly after leaving the machine. His ultimate fate remains unknown. Appearances *''The Outer Limits'', s01e05, "The Sixth Finger" (1963) Notes *Griffiths' story is similar in some ways to that of William Dunn, created thirty years earlier. Both started out as uneducated men who were experimented upon by scientists and ended up developing extraordinary mental abilities. Both came to see themselves as superior beings as a result and briefly became villains, but both were brought back to normal at the end. *Furthermore, the idea of a man undergoing accelerated evolution is also present in the 1931 sci-fi tale "The Man Who Evolved", by Edmond Hamilton, and in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Threshold". Category:Fictional Creatures Category:The Outer Limits Universe Category:Human Variations Category:Mutates Category:Sentient Beings Category:Sapient Beings Category:Humanoids Category:Former Mutants Category:Miners Category:Males Category:Telepathic Creatures Category:Characters with telekinesis Category:Characters with superhuman eyesight Category:Unknown Status Category:Characters Debuting in 1963 Category:Live Action Creatures Category:TV Show Creatures Category:Creatures Created by Ellis St. Joseph Category:Characters Portrayed by David McCallum Category:Welsh Characters